Our Man in Havana

They are indeed upright vacuum cleaners, dyson look-a-likes in fact - obtained from DAZ. How long at the computer? Well... probably too long really... but I live in the hinterland of lincolnshire and I have no television - two things which combined free up a lot of time. Grainy materials... now I began with a preset called Barnicles, that I believe appears under the stone section. The thing with the DTE is that it is not really very easy to explain what goes on in there, it is half understanding and half happy lucky chance what comes out of meddling with the procedurals. To get gritty, roughly, increase the frequency of the material and increase the bump. Erm... beyond that, it's a quagmire of mysterious functions and strange filtering options that respond best to patient trial and error.

Pretty cool! I like the colors you used for the sky. How do you get the grainy texture for the ground. Im having a problem with that. I go into the textures windows and and more or less and use different lighting and so on and so forth. But I can't seem to get it right. By the way how often do you sit at the computer to do your peices? You guys seem to put them out pretty quick. Im still working on the same one since my last one I entered. Im a stay at home person with plenty of time on my hands but wow, I can't seem to get them out very fast. Oh thanks for your advice on where to go for info. on bryce. I hit the jackpot on DAZ3D. Are those upright vaccume cleaners? Love your work!

Thanks! Aye the ground was supposed to be pebbly. But Horo is right about the issue with the lack of things on the horizon. The volume cloud was supposed to hide that... the volume cloud by the way, Rashad, is the orange and gold clouds in the sky, it is applied to a giant cube behind the terrains and fills a huge sector of the heavens to give the sky a bit of depth. Yes, Alec Guinness plays a vacuum cleaner salesman turned "spy" - the inspiration for his reports to his superiors draw heavily on his stock in trade. Horo, for some mysterious reason I can no longer send emails, don't know why, hopefully it will sort itself out. Please look to your FTP. Incomming is no problem however... weird.

The Beach_Probe seems to be your favorite and it works superbly with the Bryce sun - considering the problems of pointing the HDRI to match the setup. The sky looks great, like Rashad, I can't make out the volumetric cloud but this might also have to do with the angle of view. It appears as if the vacuum cleaner has a variant of your plastic material applied to it. It is very effective in giving a profound 3D look. That choice is a bit far out, but then, putting a vacuum cleaner at such a place is far out, too - hence it fits. The water is absolutely perfect. I have less qualms about the sand in the foreground. I perceive it as gravel and I like it that way. The whole setup - although simple - is very effective. The rocks are very nice. The only thing that disturbs me a bit is what is behind them - or rather, what is not. Just the horizon - it looks a bit empty. Just a hint of some hills or more rocks would probably help.

funny Funny scene. I appreciate the link as I was one who did not understand the pun at first. Water, great. very real. The transparency means everything. Sand, looks more like the sedimentary stones on a riverbed than actual sand, which has a much much smaller grain that what is represented here. A higher frequency will do fine if sand is what you really want. The vacuum models are very good.They look like they may be very detailed models. Either that, or there may be a bryce tech preset made to look like actual 3d modeling through bumpmapping. Either way, they look very plausible and detailed. No ambient and no sky dome again. Wise. Your secondary light sources are doing a great job of reading your model and bumpmapping contours. They sky is fine. You say there's a volumetric cloud but I can't see it. I'm at my overlybright work monitor now but I failt to see it's effect even though the volumetric cloud may be there. Do you mean volumetric as in infinite planes? Those 'volumetrics" are actually just two images on a surface stacked to look volumetric. I thought you meant volumetric procedurals. Do you? Please clarify. This scene is a fun application of your skills. There are no great risks taken or mind blowing issues, just some fun. I like it. The only change I would make is the sand as I mentioned.